DeWayne Wickham: Why no Dunn murder verdict?

DeWayne Wickham

Jordan Davis can't be dead. Not if there is any sense to be made of the decision a Florida jury produced Saturday in a trial of the man that all the world knows killed him.

The evidence against Michael Dunn, a 47-year-old white man who pulled a gun from his car's glove compartment in November 2012 and pumped 10 shots into a nearby SUV that carried Davis, 17, and three other black teens, was overwhelming.

Dunn was the aggressor. While the two vehicles were stopped outside a Jacksonville gas station, he demanded that the four teenagers turn down the loud rap music coming from their SUV. After some words were exchanged, Dunn opened fire - and then fled the scene.

He went a motel and ordered a pizza. Then he went to bed, apparently sleeping off the several rum and cokes he drank at a wedding reception shortly before his fatal encounter with the black teens.

Davis was the only one hit by the gunfire. And while he was pronounced dead, in a twisted way the jury's verdict in this controversial murder case calls into question that medical finding.

How else do you explain the 12-member jury's conclusion that Dunn was guilty of three counts of second-degree attempted murder for firing into the SUV and missing three of its occupants, but deadlocked on the question of whether he was guilty of murdering Davis?

Before you answer, consider this: The jury also found Dunn guilty of a charge of shooting into an occupied vehicle. But, it was not able to convict Dunn of being responsible in any way for killing Davis. It failed to find him guilty of first-, second- or third-degree murder, or manslaughter.

Some members of this jury must believe that Davis isn't dead. How else could all 12 jurors agree to convict Dunn for firing the bullets that didn't hit anyone, but fail to reach a verdict on what resulted from the ones that hit Davis?

Somebody on that panel must believe Dunn's lame defense. He testified to shooting only after seeing someone in the SUV point the barrel of a shotgun at him. But that story should produce a pungent odor of mendacity for anyone but the village idiot, or shameless racist.

As Dunn drove away from the shooting scene with his girlfriend, who was inside a convenience store during the confrontation, he made no mention of the teens having a shotgun. That claim didn't surface until after cops arrested him the next day at his home in Brevard County, Fla.

It is his claim of a mystery shotgun on which Dunn pinned his hope of being set free. Once invoked, this tale allowed Dunn to cling to Florida's controversial "stand your ground" law that permits a person who has a reasonable fear that his life is being threatened to respond with deadly force.

At trial, Dunn's defense suggested that the teens might have gotten rid of the shotgun during the short time they fled the gas station after the shooting. But, in an affidavit released by prosecutors before the trial, the lead detective said they drove just 400 feet from the station before returning for help once they realized Davis had been shot.

I've got another theory about why Dunn started shooting. Davis was guilty of what Ken Burns, the award-winning documentarian, called "unforgivable blackness." Burns was talking about how some whites reacted to the brashness of Jack Johnson, this nation's first black heavyweight boxing champion.

I suspect it was Davis' refusal to turn down the rap music - his unforgivable blackness - that caused Dunn to start shooting and which rendered a jury unable to accept the reality of his death.

DeWayne Wickham, dean of Morgan State University's School of Global Journalism and Communication, writes on for USA TODAY.

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DeWayne Wickham: Why no Dunn murder verdict?

Jordan Davis can't be dead. Not if there is any sense to be made of the decision a Florida jury produced Saturday in a trial of the man that all the world knows killed him.